Stanley and the Eternal Return
by shawn-adrian
Summary: At the local watering hole, Alpha Clan leader, Stanley, finds the last basin dried up. What's an ape to do? Listen to Stanley narrate his thoughts while he quests for hydration for not only himself but his huge family as well. He takes on another clan leader, a snake, and the environment itself. This short story is an allusion to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).


We encountered those Beta Clan chumps at the watering hole again. Ape, I hate those guys. We had to pantomime and holler, starting from that wall of rocks at the north side of the watering hole. In a group choreography, we emerged from the rock border. I led the group so that they could mimic my various ground pounds, teeth-bearing, and yelling. We'd claimed the watering hole first anyway. It was ours, they had their own. So, then Beta Clan fled, albeit hesitantly, from the watering hole, allowing us to huddle around and bring a few palms full of the bitter, muddy water to our mouths.

As I checked over my shoulder at the Beta Clan apes retreating to the cliffs, I saw her, my soulmate. The ape lady of my dreams. Ape, would I like to pick the insects from her fur. I turned back to our group, Alpha Clan, and thwacked my fists against my chest because her beauty had inspired in me a spike of energy.

Then I wondered if she would even like an ape with his own language, ideas, and thoughts.

I have a name, and it is Stanley. I have always been a peculiar ape, unlike the others, likely due to my idiosyncratic intelligence. How should I put this? I am complex. A whole lexicon writhes inside me. I appointed myself as leader of Alpha Clan after the last leader started flinging his own turds at random members of our group. That was the impetus for a new autocracy. Yelling and pushing him over is how I secured the position of authority. A consensus-driven democracy is out of the question as our jaws are not yet evolved enough for enunciation. So, I am basically alone in my head.

Right now, I sit in the crevice of a sedimentary cliff. My theory about sedimentary rocks is that, over time, minerals join with—oh, who cares? All of my extended family sleeps below me. Some of them are huddled in pairs and some of them sleep by themselves, but they are all resting in a more or less circular formation. There is Mom and Dad, Uncle Bill, Cathy (sister), Courtney (sister), Junior (brother) and Delilah (brother's girlfriend whom we found, during a water scavenge, roaming the Badlands desert), Uncle Tom-Tom, Aunt Louise and her boyfriend whom I have not thought up a name for yet, and younger cousins, Wilbur, Theresa, Glen, Savannah, and Giselle. They are all as dumb as rocks, and I love them to death.

The sky darkens so that I barely see my family anymore. The sky is a wash of black. And more clouds coalesce, blocking the shine of the night stars. Is there someone or something controlling all of this? A cool wind passes and bites me beneath the hair. I wedge myself more into the crevice so that the declining rock walls sort of hug me. My mouth is so dry. I wait for rain, but I don't think these are the right types of clouds. The land has been subjected to a prolonged dry spell. I fall asleep, and in my dream I drink sand.

I wake up early to the family's egregious roaring. They line the rock border, leaping back and forth in their own small areas. Some of them pause to yell at me, then continue their hectic dances. What is it, this early in the morning? I lower myself from the cliff crevice. I waddle to the rock border and survey the watering hole area for predators: cougars, lions, and hyenas. I see no predators, but, instead, a Beta Clan chump. His big stupid lips press against the watering hole as if he is trying to suck the last of our water through a straw. Other Beta Clan apes are milling about, picking at their cuticles or nibbling on dry grass roots. What an expletive! I rush toward the ape drinking the water, shouting angrily at him, but he only raises his head. Piece of expletive! We crouch, face-to-face, breathing in each other's funk. I splash the last of the watering hole water at him. He backs off a bit, and joins the other lazing apes. They acknowledge my presence; the action of teeth-bearing sweeps across the group, but not much else. Twenty versus one are odds in their favour. However, they also appear kind of sick and lethargic. I look back to my Alpha Clan who peek over the large oval boulders at me. Generally, they seem fearful, except for Mom and Dad who keep darting their eyes at my ape lady romantic interest and then at me and then at her as if to say, there is a nice girl for you. I shrug and retreat to the rock border. If there is no water or food to fight over, I have no conflict with Beta Clan. But maybe there is water at their base—plenty of water.

What if you could make a containing unit for water that was also mobile, like a watering hole raised above the ground so that water could not seep down into sand or soil? One can dream.

We return to our Alpha Clan base/sleeping area and I try to devise a strategy for acquiring water. I perch on the cliff and contemplate. If we head north, we can try to overtake the Beta Clan's water supply at their base although they are likely guarding it. If we head east, there might be water in the Badlands' Low Dips but we all fell ill after drinking from there the last time, especially the younger cousins who started acting wonky. We can't go west because, in that direction, the desert stretches to the horizon. If we go south, there are surely pools of water near the marshlands, but the Cougar Clan might have an ancestry of fecund females, which is to say, their populous Clan might decimate ours. I have never really had a chance to count all those wildcats. Or I could body check a goat off this cliff, then perform a spontaneous rain dance, hoping that my ritual sacrifice would appease any Gods if said Gods exist. No, I could never do that to a cute little goat. Sometimes I sneak up on grazing goats and pet them. But, then they get spooked and prance away, around the cliff side.

Anyway. Decisions, decisions. Argh! I roar.

I decide to go east and scour the Badlands by myself as I am plenty agile. If I lead the family to many bone-dry Low Dips, then they collapse from over-exertion and we're hooped. They don't look so hot anyway; they are all standing in—what seems to be—a delirium, or in the same spirit of how you act when you have just awoken from a nap, except for Uncle Tom-Tom who has picked a serious grudge match against the cliff wall, throwing sand and grunts its way. I scurry down the cliff side and relay that I am going to search for water in the Badlands and that I will be back later. Everyone blinks. Cathy topples onto her side. I rush over to her, but she is still breathing, perhaps taking a siesta. I get a little worried. No matter, I have provided for the family before, albeit alongside Uncle Tom-Tom and Uncle Spaghetti before the pack of hyenas got to him (R.I.P. Uncle S.). Regardless, I will prevail!

I search the Low Dips. From the edge of the crater there seems to be no water. I walk down anyway to check for moisture because maybe I am wrong. This bed has only muck. Down here, the atmosphere is like that of a warm, filthy cloud. I lower my head to the thick swamp to further analyze the traces of moisture. The muck smells like grass mulch. My hand reaches down the Dip floor, and it comes out coated in a brown layer of goop. I rise from the Low Dip, continuing to trek. The sun has moved a certain number of degrees so I estimate that two hours have passed. I check more Low Dips. I nap in a deeper one because I am winded. If only the family would have let me rest longer.

As I close my eyes, the interior of the Low Dip spins vertiginously.

I wake up tired. I rise from out of the Low Dip. The sun says that I have traveled back in time three hours. Maybe I slept for basically an entire day. No, that can't be right. I need to find that water, so I can herd the family back here. They're probably beyond thirsty, not to mention hungry, by now. Expletive! Expletive. Expletive. Frantic, I trot around now. Have I been here before? Yes. No. Yes. No.

Another hour passes.

The plain tilts like a giant board balancing on a pivot. I pray to the Gods for help even though I am agnostic. I wait. This is embarrassing to say, but I cry a little bit. I pray some more. A green snake emerges from the sand. It braces its neck as if it might lurch at me. This is not the way I am leaving this life. I swing at it two thousand and one times. My punches are furious enough that I enter a trance of rage. Kill snake, return home. Kill snake, return home. Die snake! The punches never connect. And then my arms weigh a bajillion pounds. I huff so hard that I think my heart will explode. The snake slithers toward me, coils around my body, then squeezes. Ape, this is the end. This is it. Sorry, family, I failed you. I tried to care for you the best way I knew how. I will die pristinely, a virgin who never loved. This life was all for naught. Come to me, glorious sun. But, no.

The snake wraps itself around my noggin. From his head flicks a skinny little tongue. He tastes the consciousness radiating from my brain. He knows there is intelligence in there, deeper than I can convey, an intelligence like his. He licks my head for a couple minutes. At first the experience is spiritual, and then it is awkward. I think he might be overstating the point. Finally, he lowers himself from my body. He hedges forward, looking back every few strides as if to say, why are you not following? I follow him down a nearby Low Dip. There is a pool of crystal clear water above a bedrock floor. I swear that I just checked this spot. It only had muck like the others. I bring palms full of water to my mouth. I have never tasted a water so clean. Then the snake drinks all the water. All of it. The snake drains the pool. What was that for, snake? You tease me. Snake travels to my palm and dangles his head over my loose grip. I stretch my arm out so that it is perpendicular to my body. Snake's tail reaches to the ground. You could not share with me, Snake, you did not let me replenish my family with the bounty. You ought to become lifeless, you selfish Snake. I wring Snake's neck with my hand. I have never felt such power pass through my arm; my arm pulsates with an infinite strength. Is this power for me? Snake, hanging vertically from my hand, calcifies. I do not care. While he turns as solid as a stone, a whisper floats away from his body, and it says, whether you use me for good or bad, you must use me either way. Still, I keep squeezing. His skin breaks, falling to the ground in shards. I wield a spear in my hand, which was formerly Snake. It has a diamond head. Thank you, Snake. Thank you, God. I know what to do with this spear of vital energy. My mouth is drier than it has ever been.

I reach Alpha Clan base at a particularly dark time of night. My family sleeps in their usual circular formation; no one even so much as stirs as I roam about their heaving, snoring bodies. It is okay, my lovely ones, I will do what is right for us. It is easy for me to dote on them. Theresa gave me a bamboo stalk a few days ago, out of nowhere. She is so young to be sharing. How does she know to do this? I was never as kind as her, at least not until my later years. I am sure Mom and Dad sometimes worried about how I would turn out, in their simple mindset way, but I think I am good now.

The moon peeks through the hole of a cloud, my diamond spearhead catches the lunar glow, and I move to action.

I waddle across the plain toward the silhouetted rock border. I climb over the row of large oval boulders, which has become a little tricky because of the spear gripped with my right hand, but I manage. Further ahead, the watering hole water is just a fuzzy memory. Where has the water gone? Oh, yes, those Beta Clan thieves. There are fewer things more sinister than robbing us of our birthright. In place of the water is a layer of moist sand crust. I venture further to the narrow cliff-side passage that Beta Clan has used to enter and exit our base. A streaming, strange strip of sand is in the way. I bound across the flowing sand, onto the narrow cliff passage.

A bird swoops by, singing a lugubrious tune. I suddenly feel the way I do in nightmares. When will I wake up? I rub my eyes, I look back. The once-flowing sand is now perfectly still.

Up the slight incline, the narrow passage opens onto a massive plateau, a giant shelf attached to the mountainside. There are Beta Clan bodies scattered about the area, not even rustling as I creep up to them. Where are you hiding the water, idiots? My family and I need some. I am past diplomacy, in my heart I feel tyrannical. I hear the water trickling down the mountainside. There are so many tributaries flowing in the night that I can hear them! There is a rhythmic pumping of water in my ear drums. I poke an ape on the ground with the butt of my spear, but he only moans. Lazy expletive. I move to another ape sleeping near a cave, and bump him with my butt. This ape rises, although staggering, like he has just eaten fermented berries. He roars at me with a mouth so wide open that I think he wants to devour the entire mountain. It is the ape that drank the last of the water from our watering hole, but somehow he seems larger now, a giant evil shadow. He stalks toward me. I am scared. But I know what to do. With the diamond-head end of the spear I impale him once, twice, three times, and a fourth. He wails and falls to the ground. He fidgets a bit. He has deep gouges. The moonlight shows me the wounds leaking blood. I am instantly sorry to have gashed this poor soul. What have I done? I try to inspect the wounds, but I basically just end up wiping the accumulating blood around.

Then an ape grunts softly, at my periphery. I grip my spear. It is ape lady, emerging from the cave. She is sickly as well, but coherent. I shuffle up to her, showing her the blood covering my hands, and the blood drying on the spear shaft as if to say, how can I fix this? She then shoots me a look that has a sort of knowing behind it. I see that the cave is empty. She leads me deep into the cave, holding my hand. Then she backs up to me, submitting, bracing her right hand against my thigh so that I ease into her.

What's an ape to do? Forgive me for my transgressions. I am weak. I am on the verge of collapse. I can feel my body shutting itself away from the world. But she knows what I do not, that water is on its way. She will raise our child while I decompose here. In his later years, our son will discover the spear as I did, and find a darkness in his heart that breaks him. He, too, will pulverize himself for love until he is totally and finally destroyed.


End file.
